Let’s face it, portrait of Marlowe unlikely

Ever since the portrait of a man with puppyish eyes and rogueish beard was discovered in the 1950s at Christopher Marlowe’s old college, scholars have clung to the idea that it depicts the dashing Elizabethan playwright, poet and spy.

It is the only image that exists of Marlowe... unfortunately, it is almost certainly not him.

Research by a Marlowe expert and a former fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where the painting was discovered in 1952 beneath a gas fire, suggests that the Marlowe would have been the wrong age, would not have worn such fine clothes and would be unlikely to have commissioned a portrait at all.

The portrait, painted in 1585, captured the imagination of Marlowe enthusiasts because it was not only found…